"This project is relevant because all four partner countries send a lot of students abroad every year, but we all have different ways of preparation/coaching students, who want to go abroad. It provides some different expectations of all the parties. Sometimes it creates misunderstandings and frustration for stakeholders. When we have the same frame of reference as a common toolkit, all stakeholders will understand each other better and our students will feel more secure and confident and better equipped and also having a feeling of being more professional when they take an internship abroad. Students will be more confident with their objectives, they have an idea of what is expected of them from the internships.The project is innovative because the outcome involves participants from internships/ labour market, employers and students during the process of this strategic partnership and also after the expiry of the EU funding. The new element is that we establish a local student board to hear their views and experiences on how this toolkit works best. The student board is an equal partner and is participating and giving feedback. The students will bring their opinions and also act as a pilot in the project in two levels (locally/nationally and internationally)The main objective of this project is to improve the preparation proces for students who want to go abroad in internships in the collaborating countries. The project partners want to develop and to test a toolkit in a project period from September 2015 to spring 2018. Project partners consisting of four partner countries from Finland, The Netherlands, Estonia and Denmark (all VET schools/ colleges) and several assistant partners as local work placements /local internships will also participate in this project.- Finland´s representative is an ECVET expert. In addition, the Finnish school (Omnia) has for the last 2 years worked with ""Individual learning pathway"".- The Netherlands (Vitalis College): has a long experience working with innovative cooperation exercises and teamwork.- Estonia (Kuressaare Ametikool): Big experience in using information technology in teaching students in VET-programmes.- Denmark (SOSU Nord College): The teachers teach daily in innovative learning methods like: cooperative learning and ""Theatre of the oppressed"" (Forum Teater)A phased project model implements the project. The project is legally anchored in the applicant organization SOSU Nord where a steering committee has been established to ensure that the project is implemented according to the Danish rules for ERASMUS +.The coordinating group has divided the project activities in 6 phases.The six phases vill ensure coherence and clarity for all parties in the project. At each phase transition the coordinating group discusses whether the milestones are reached and weather activities are managed well. Then the group plans in detail the next phase. The steering committee approves the coordinating group´s coming things to do.The tangible result of the project will be a toolkit. The toolkit will be a flexible and dynamic open online platform. The project partners will ensure the existence of the toolkit after the expiry of the project period. It means that after the project, other VET schools with related internships in Europe have the opportunity to contribute and add materials and create databases and therefore the toolkit remains to the benefit of all European stakeholders. Activities related to the toolkit are the other intellectual outputs mentioned in this project. These intellectual outputs are essentials elements in the toolkit and they are connected to a lot of activities.One of the milestones is a beta version of the toolkit, which will be ready for the national pilot beginning 2017 and later on the toolkit will be fully functional for the international pilot (2018) Another milestone is (C1) Learning/Training Activities in innovative learning methods, for teachers only, which will support the project's objectives: ""Improving the preparation proces for students who want to go abroad in internships"". This training/learning activity is necessary for the project's results and further implementation.The final result = the toolkit will have a positive and enhancing impact of students´:- social skills- personal skills - foreign language skills - professional skillsThe project partners use an online web portal based on a CMS-System to create our toolkit, because it is a free web software. This is beneficial for the long term benefits of the project based on the assumption that there will be a greater chance of continuity and maintenance after the expiry of the EU funding. The final result of this project is sustainable because the online open toolkit will be relevant in the future because of its its relevance usefulness and function. Form and contents of the toolkit will probably change according to the needs and wishes of the future Europe."

"<< Background >>In the post-Covid era, all sectors, including education and the tourism and hospitality sector, must be part of taking responsibility for developing recovery plans that build a more sustainable future. There is a concern that many in the industry leave high goals and sustainability strategies and invest in simple and cheap to be able to recover quickly. According to the UNWTO, “The sudden and unexpected fall in tourism demand caused by COVID-19 places millions of jobs and livelihoods at risk while at the same time jeopardising the advances made in sustainable development and equality over recent years.” The European Council recommendation (2020) on VET for Sustainable Competitiveness, Social Justice and Resilience also emphasises the role of ""green and digital transition"" and ""accessibility"" to create ""a modern, attractive and flexible vocational training"". The recommendation further supports embedding environmental and social sustainability into VET curricula including linking the environmental aspect to other fields as well as increasing the use of new learning environments, tools and pedagogies for both VET specific and transversal content. The twin transitions towards a more sustainable economy will require VET to adapt so that learners acquire the skills needed for the twin transitions, while also strengthening the role of VET in their lifelong learning continuum. It is increasingly important that graduates are equipped with greater understanding of their own competences and ability to recognise when reskilling or upskilling is required. The economic recovery from the COVID-19 crisis offers an opportunity to accelerate both small and large-scale reforms in VET in local, national and European contexts and strengthen its resilience, notably by digitising learning and methods and agile adaptation to changing labour market needs. This includes paying attention to the need to ensure access to digital competences and technologies for every learner, teacher and trainer. VET plays also a crucial role in tackling many of the most pressing challenges that Europe is faced with today, such as competitiveness, youth unemployment and social inclusion. In 2017, a study commissioned by the DG of Employment and Social Affairs confirmed that one of the most effective ways to increase the quality and attractiveness of VET is to make the link between education and business stronger. Results also indicate that the most effective strategies are those that build bridges to the world of work while people are still in education. The most effective strategies were found to combine a training component with strong links to the employer community, more formal training linked to work-based learning and work experience.<< Objectives >>The aim of the project is to create opportunities and develop a model for teaching and learning green and sustainable entrepreneurial skills that are needed in today's hospitality and catering business. The project will use blended learning, where both digital skills and physical mobility are included in the model. The Covid-19 pandemic has affected the restaurant industry in a negative way, creating major challenges for the hospitality industry. This has affected the attractiveness of the industry and brought many challenges such as pointed in the Annex 4 (Covid impact analysis). In many countries, there is a great shortage of chefs and staff for the restaurant industry. With the project, we want to increase interest in vocational education, create motivation and attractiveness to the industry and give students a broad and stable foundation to stand on with good digital knowledge, increased international experience and an understanding of cultural similarities and differences. Students get to develop their communication skills in language and the social and civic skills in the various virtual and physical encounters between schools. For the staff, the project contributes to the development of digital methods and training tools, which supports teachers in their professional development to increased digital preparedness. An entrepreneurial mindset is a transversal competence needed at various stages of our lifes. Entrepreneurial learning is the development of attitudes, skills and knowledge that enable the individual to turn creative ideas into action. Entrepreneurship is not only related to economic activities and business creation, but in today’s VET education an entrepreneurial mindset is seen as another core professional competence for creating value in all areas of work, with or without a commercial objective. Entrepreneurial learning stimulates innovation and the capacities to deal with exponential change such as the climate and biodiversity crisis. It engages and motivates through relevant learning experiences for education, life and work and empowers students to create value for society and deal with societal challenges<< Implementation >>Partners have chosen persons who will allocate sufficient time resources for the GreenPopUp4all project. The project has a detailed timeline and implementation is planned and documented in a GANTT chart (Annex 3) where the milestones for the implementation are to be found. For quality control there is also an Impact tool (Annex 5) document to help to manage the project as well.Areas of responsibility for different activities have been divided between the partners, too. All partners will nevertheless participate to each activity. The responsibilities are divided into eight activity areas which include tasks from project management and dissemination to actual LTT activities and other related tasks. These are explained more closely in the implementation section concerning project activities and achieving planned results. LTT activities are essential as well as testing the blended learning model in practice. Workshops for teachers and students provide a good environment to get feedback in order to develop the blended learning module and the manual for the teachers for sustainable entrepreneurial skills. Testing a blended learning module and having virtual meetings, for instance, offers also a possibility to involve participants with fewer opportunities to take part in transnational activities. Teachers’ workshops offer a possibility to share new ideas and gain knowledge, which supports their teaching and developing the new blended learning module for sustainability and entrepreneurship. Student workshops help to encourage youth to act as global citizens. Essential is to increase their understanding about sustainability in the catering industry. The project aims to support sustainable entrepreneurship and entrepreneurial mindset, cooking, travelling and improving participants’ key skills. Students improve their digital skills during the project and in LTT activities they will develop their language skills and especially their teamwork skills in a multicultural team. ZBC, Kuressaare and Gradia will have the main responsibility for these results.Project management and implementation will be carried out by all project partners, but the main responsibility for these activities is for Borås and Gradia. The project coordinator, Gradia, will organize and coordinate transnational meetings, regular online meetings and reporting procedures. There will be continuous evaluation of project results and quality management. Diverse dissemination activities are also planned for securing sustainability of project results and sharing the results to a wide audience.<< Results >>There will be two main results in the project. Result 1 will be a step-by-step guide for teachers about implementing GreenPopUp restaurants into everyday training process. It will support earning sustainable and entrepreneurial skills within the food & catering industry with the help of PopUp restaurants as a method. Documented procedures and guidance will support teachers’ everyday work and ensure sustainability and wider usage of the project results and outcomes also after the project has ended. Teachers will be more skilled to use different digital platforms in the future and usage will also be more versatile. New methods and blended learning will have a positive impact on teachers’ everyday work and the concepts of sustainable development and green values are linked to the work more closely. Due to the documentation it will be easier to implement the same procedures on a larger scale or in different contexts – also for new users. Documentation is also essential when thinking about results and risk management, such as changes in the staff etc.Project result 2 is a module in a learning space in a common open platform aimed at students and teachers in European VET schools within food & catering. The platform will probably be Moodle, where we will create an online learning module with relevant theory and content related to project result 1. The blended learning module on sustainability and entrepreneurship in catering serves several purposes. First, it provides an overview of the themes and topics for students. Students will foster entrepreneurial mindset during the project and develop their transversal skills as well. Participating in workshops and performing practical tasks by productizing marketable food and beverage products or services suitable for the target group is essential part of the learning process.After the project, the module can have a function as a stand-alone orientation or extra resource for learning about sustainability and fostering an entrepreneurial mindset. It offers also possibilities for (KA1) blended mobility activities. The module will combine the benefits of online learning with traditional in-class learning and physical mobility. Virtual, hybrid and blended digital pedagogy means also flexibility in learning and teaching. The module has high transferability potential and will be made available for other potential users internally and externally as well.The project offers a possibility for students, teachers and other educational staff to to experience an international learning community for through physical and virtual mobility and internationalization at home. This will increase inclusion and integration at the same time and encourage participants with fewer opportunities to participate in international activities. Changing ideas and practices concerning sustainability and entrepreneurship is also essential in the learning process for teachers and students. The project supports also cooperation with different stakeholders in local, regional, national and European level. The created transnational network and new contacts will be beneficial for both teachers and students in the future collaboration."

"The project ""Implementing e-learning for the better integration of learners with special educational needs into the labour market through audiovisual media (Multimedia Design) curriculum“ (Verbesserung der Integration behinderter Menschen in den Arbeitsmarkt durch berufliche Qualifizierung mittels e-Learning auf der Basis eines Curriculums für audiovisuelle Medien (Multimedia Design) is about improving the professional training of people with reduced mobility through digital education tools. Digitalisation of education is still modestly developed in Europe. It would be reasonable to start organising broader and deeper learning based on the above-mentioned target group, as their vocational learning opportunities are more limited compared to others.According to the objectives of the project, the e-curriculum and its corresponding e-learning modules are created for one speciality in the labour market - multimedia designer - to complete the theoretical part of the whole study. After completion of the products, they will receive a year-long theoretical study by all partners in three countries (Germany, Austria, Estonia). It is a target group that has difficulty in day-to-day attendance. Acquiring a speciality via e-learning is a great opportunity for them to study at home - in any location or country. The project will end after theory training with their direction to practice in which it is possible to participate by telecommuting. The project has a duration of 2.5 years and the pilot process comprises at least 125 students. The results are applicable throughout Europe.The project will result in substantial improvement in getting a job, motivation and self-confidence. The development of new digital education methodology and new solution projects depends on the success of the project for the benefit of disabled people target groups and for the others. The project has equal importance in the local, regional and international stage. It doesn’t matter which country the student or teacher is in – learning that considers the target groups is possible everywhere and in every country. Cross-border learning becomes international borderless education."

The frequent incidence of pseudo-scientific information, conspiracy theories, and “alternative” facts in media is a new reality. Despite a modern raised level of education and standard of living, the number of people, adopting beliefs that are patently at odds with observable reality and scientific evidence, is a growing concern. This kind of alienation from “objectivity” or “truth” may be related to the people’s inability to sort evidence-based information from an unjustified opinion because of the enormously increased volume of information, but also of poor media or science literacy itself. Unfortunately, most (science) teachers lack skills to tackle socially acute science related issues susceptible to controversies and social escalation in the classroom, many of which raised by students in the context of health. Teaching complex problems and the development of key competences may require more knowledge and skills from teachers than has been “normally” needed for teaching a single subject. This obstacle may be, actually, overcome through the close collaboration between different types of teachers (teachers of different subjects, school levels, school types - GE, VET, HE). The need to promote such collaboration is also emphasised in different educational strategies, although the current collaboration remains rather modest. Therefore, the main aim of this project is to create a relevant model for implementing EVIDENCE methodology, together with respective teaching-learning materials, that will contribute to the development of students’ key competences, such as literacy, science, media, digital, and citizenship competence of both GE and VET schools, while addressing socially acute and sensitive science related issues within the context of medicine, healthcare, and the environment more generally. Also, by this approach, including a number of challenging and innovative learning activities such as mythbusting, data digital visualisation, role-plays, debates, etc., it is hoped to make science learning more motivating and personally meaningful for diverse groups of students - those who are interested in science, and also those with a lack of interest and low academic achievement who can be seen as potential school leavers. All learning materials (6 modules, each addressing a separate controversial topic supported amongst the other materials by video scenarios and video tutorials) are created in an interactive manner on an innovative Fachwerk platform. The development of materials, executed through several workshops, is based on an instructional design model consisting of pre-production, production, and post-production. The first includes needs, tasks, learner, and goal analyses while in the production phase, the final design will be developed, and all the necessary components for its completion will be created and integrated through a use of rapid prototyping and recurrent evaluation. In the post-production phase, the finished product will be made ready to those who are going to use it. Anticipated impact: •Improvement of both, GE and VET students’ (age group 15-18) motivation to learn science, raised key competences, and readiness to make personally and socially responsible and well-considered health related decisions, which in a wider perspective, will contribute to the improved general societal wellbeing in project countries or in a region.•Raised skills of students in using creatively digital visualisation techniques to communicate with other people, which, amongst the other key competences being essential for 21st century workforce, will lead to their better employability.•Improved teacher performance, self-efficacy, and motivation of GE, VET and HE teachers and a demonstration of practice that will competently address socially sensitive and controversial science-related issues; improvement of skills for using digital tools, and raised effectiveness to develop students’ key competences in classroom. •Improved collaboration between teachers and educators of different types of educational institutions (GE, VET, HE) may give a further impetus to the development of educational models enabling flexible learning pathways between GE, VET, and HE institutions operationalising, thereby, the idea of “seamless” education in partner countries.•Students’ raised ability to recognise demagogy and information lacking evidence, and their ability to create well-considered and argumented decisions as citizens, will lead our society towards a more balanced and sustainable direction.•Through the dissemination of project ideas and results to a wider community of teachers, teacher educators, science education researchers, and educational policy makers, it is hoped to initiate a wider European discourse on the “post-truth” challenges for education.

The completed project “Recording Our Training Experiences in Documentaries” was dedicated to the field of tourism. In this project students from different cultures and studying in different educational systems in Europe worked together. All participating schools are located in the areas where tourism has important role in each country’s economy. The project originated as a need to improve our everyday classroom work and a way to motivate the students in informal learning through new and innovative teaching methods and approaches in order to gain new skills needed in the tourist industry and at the same time to get the students engaged in extracurricular activities. The topic of the project was making footage and documentaries related to tourism and youth oriented. The project was aimed at young people who wanted to boost and benefit from their creativity, potential and ambition. It was intended to promote the benefits of IT and digital competences. The project main aim was improving ICT and digital technology skills of both the students and the teachers, to enrich their knowledge of a wider European environment through the use of IT and digital technology. ICT and digital technology were used to create youth-oriented documentary films about tourist regions of their countries with emphasis on the country's heritage, traditions, customs on one hand and things to do for young people on the other hand. Realistic ICT goals were set up, which were students-oriented in order to present their culture, tourist attractions and sights in the eye of young people. One of the objectives of the project was to improve the skills of our students, especially of weaker students with low basic skills and motivate them to acquire skills and knowledge through the process of learning from experience and peer learning. It also aimed to provide an opportunity for stronger students to achieve more and use their talents and skills out of the classroom and at the same time get a unique experience that could be gained only by participating in such a project on European level. One of the goals of the project was to motivate the students through informal learning, to stimulate students through doing and creating to achieve more The target groups of participants were young students, teachers and non-teaching staff in participating schools. All our partners were skilful in various fields like business management, tourism and catering, marketing, foreign languages, history, geography, entrepreneurship, ICT, multimedia design, recreation, hospitality service, communication and dissemination, event organization, agriculture as a source of tourist income.Before the actual project activities took place Erasmus+ Route Docs Clubs were formed at each partner school. The activities undertaken throughout the project were innovative, creative and student-oriented. Our students had a chance to prove themselves in extracurricular tasks in addition to their regular lessons. Most of the project activities were done in schools through involving them in the school curriculum and also through extra-curricular activities. The possibility to participate in various learning, teaching and training activities with European peers was an invaluable opportunity to learn from practical experience. For example, exploring a town or a city, exploring flora and fauna of our national parks, visits to different institutions to get to know how they operate, and factories to see the process of production of things important for the tourist industry.The results of our completed project are different accomplished activities that resulted in 25 documentaries that all introduce our regions and share our experiences while working together. Participating in the project enabled the students to develop their basic and transversal skills, with highlight on entrepreneurship in the tourist industry and improving ICT and digital technology skills. The project promoted the EU Citizenship, enabled all the participants to improve their European awareness and intercultural understanding by experiencing life in another country, observing and noticing cultural differences and similarities; it boosted cooperation between students from other countries. The impact of the project at the local, regional, national, European or international levels is its recognition as a promotional tourist material that can be used in high schools or other educational organizations, in tourist offices for introducing destinations chosen by youth.